10 Awesome Mail Order Hot Dogs

Sometimes, you find yourself jonesing for an authentic D.C. half-smoke or a garbage plate made with a true Rochester frank. Fear not, you can have all these regional wiener styles delivered straight to your doorstep. Our guide to the best mail-order hot dog brands from across the country details exactly how to get them. We’ve included serving suggestions for each frank—so you’ll know to top your Alaskan reindeer sausage with Coca Cola-caramelized onions and your Hebrew National with spicy mustard and coleslaw. When it comes to hotdogs, who says you can’t have it all?

Sometimes, you find yourself jonesing for an authentic D.C. half-smoke or a garbage plate made with a true Rochester frank. Fear not, you can have all these regional wiener styles delivered straight to your doorstep. Our guide to the best mail-order hot dog brands from across the country details exactly how to get them. We’ve included serving suggestions for each frank—so you’ll know to top your Alaskan reindeer sausage with Coca Cola-caramelized onions and your Hebrew National with spicy mustard and coleslaw. When it comes to hotdogs, who says you can’t have it all?

W.A. Bean & Sons

Location: Bangor, Maine
Founded: 1860
Website:beansmeats.comBasic wiener appeal: This neon red hot dog has a great snap when you bite into it, and contrasts well with bright yellow mustard.
Use it to make: A classic Maine dog. Boil or grill your red snapper and serve in a New England split-top buttered and toasted hot dog bun.
The red snapper—a pork and beef natural casing frank died bright red with FD&C Red #40—is near and dear to every Mainer’s heart. This 150-year-old company is the only Maine-based manufacturer of red snappers still in existence today. You can also order beef and pork “snack sticks” and haggis from the W.A. Bean site, but the snappers are most definitely the main attraction.

Vienna Beef

Location: Chicago, Illinois
Founded: 1893
Website:viennabeef.comBasic wiener appeal: The all-beef frank is ubiquitous in Chicago–80% of city’s hot dog vendors serve Vienna Beef products. Their hickory-smoked dogs are made with brisket trimmings and lean bull and cow meat.
Use it to make: A classic Chicago-style dog. Steam or water-simmer the frank, then top it with yellow mustard, bright green relish, chopped onions, tomato wedges, a kosher-style pickle spear, spicy sport peppers, and a dash of celery salt. Serve in a poppy seed bun. No ketchup, please.
The company started when sausage-makers Samuel Ladany and Emil Reichl emigrated to the United States from Austria-Hungary in 1890. The couple’s all-beef sausage product was a hit at the World's Fair/Columbian Exposition in 1893, and the rest is Windy City history.

Zweigle's

Location: Rochester, New York
Founded: 1880
Website:zweigles.comBasic wiener appeal: The company’s Texas Brand Red Hots are sizeable, well spiced, brigh pink pork and beef dogs with natural casing; their uncured White Hots are made with veal and pork.
Use it to make: The infamous Rochester garbage plate, which consists of Zweigle's hot dogs, tater tots or fries, potato salad, relish, ketchup, mustard, and a ground meat chili sauce.
When this fifth-generation, family-owned business opened its doors, it immediately gained notoriety for its “Old World” German products including Frankfurts, Wieners, Sausages, Bloodwurst, Weiswurst, and Liver Sausage. They’ve since gained a cult following locally for their red and white hots—a true Upstate experience.

Kayem

Location: Chelsea, Massachusetts
Founded: 1909
Website:kayem.comBasic wiener appeal: Plump, juicy, skinless beef and pork franks used at Fenway Park.
Use it to make: A traditional Fenway Frank, topped with relish, spicy brown mustard and onions.
You no longer have to travel to Beantown to get a Fenway Frank–just order a pack of eight straight to your home. Polish immigrant Kazimierz Monkiewicz started his sausage business in Chelsea, Mass over a hundred years back. He sold his sausages at the Kayem meat market, which he opened with his wife, Helena. The horse drawn carriage was Kayem’s transportation vehicle of choice when delivering products to neighboring communities.

4505 Meats

Location: San Francisco, California
Founded: 2009
Website:4505meats.comBasic wiener appeal: 4505’s uncured frankfurters are studded with bacon and inspired by the plump, juicy franks of owner Ryan Farr's Midwestern youth. Need we say more?
Use it to make: Something fancy, because this is one gourmet dog.
Ryan Farr worked 15 years in fine dining before he started 4505 Meats on Mission Street. Farr works with local farmers and ranchers throughout the year to source high quality, pastured meats to make his quality goods. If you mail order 4505’s dogs—how could you resist—get some of their chili-dusted chicharrones while you’re at it.

Ben’s Chili Bowl

Location: Washington, D.C.
Founded: 1958
Website:benschilibowl.comBasic wiener appeal: Ben’s “original chili half-smoke”, a one-quarter pound half-pork and half-beef smoked sausage, is Bill Cosby (and the majority of D.C.’s) hot dog of choice.
Use it to make: A chili half-smoke à la Ben’s, which features the smoked sausage on a steamed bun, topped with mustard, onions and spicy homemade chili sauce (which you can also order online).
If you haven’t heard of D.C. stalwart Ben’s Chili Bowl, you’re clearly not up on your Frankfurter game. Ben’s started serving their “original chili half-smoke” over 50 years back. In January 2009, D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty took President Obama to eat at Ben's as part of his welcome to the city. But you don’t have to be el presidente to enjoy a half smoke—mail order a pack to your pad, steam or grill them up and enjoy the dogs at your next cookout.

Hummel Bros.

Location: New Haven, Connecticut
Founded: 1933
Website:hummelbros.comBasic wiener appeal: Hummel franks are made with beef and pork and packaged in a natural casing made from sheep's intestine. They hit an ideal balance with spice and have an old-world flavor.
Use it to make: Since Connecticut hot dog styles are so varied, just go crazy with this one. Serve it plain, with condiments, or doused in meat chili like they do at Super Duper Weenie in Fairfield.
Brothers Robert and William Hummel left their family in Hals, Germany to establish a business in the U.S. They borrowed money to buy a bankrupt sausage company in 1933 and started Hummel Bros. Residents of Connecticut swear by their product.

Hartmann's Old World Sausage

Location: Canandaigua, New York
Founded: 1963
Website:hartmannssausage.comBasic wiener appeal: Hartmann's pork and beef Frankfurters are some of the best commercially available hot dogs out there, and the brand used by Bark hot dogs in Brooklyn. They have a terrific garlicky, smoky flavor.
Use it to make: A Bark-style hot dog. Slow cook the dog on a flat griddle and baste it with smoked lard butter.
Austrian-born Josef Brunner began his career as a master sausage maker in 1978. In 2004, he purchased a small local butcher shop Hartmann's Old World Sausage—founded by Eugen and Brigitte Hartmann in 1963—and added a natural smokehouse, which condensed the smoking process and allowed for precise flavor control. The result? One extraordinary hotdog.

Hebrew National

Location: (Founded in) Lower East Side, Manhattan
Founded: 1905
Website: hebrewnational.comBasic wiener appeal: This all-beef kosher frank is garlicky, meaty, and perfectly juicy with great fatty flavor.
Use it to make: A quintessential New York City dog. A grilled Hebrew National (ok, you can also use Sabrett’s) frank served on a toasted bun and topped with slightly spicy mustard and sauerkraut. If you want to do it Papaya Dog-style, add red onion sauce (a concoction of onions, tomato paste, and vinegar).
Isadore Pinckowitz, a Romanian immigrant butcher who began his career hawking meat from the back of a horse-drawn wagon, bought the Hebrew National Kosher Sausage Factory in 1928. He began selling kosher sausages and hot dogs to New York's deli restaurants and for Waldbaum's, the city's largest grocery chain catering to Jewish households. Today, Hebrew National has a workforce of 500 people in the United States and is one of the leading kosher meat processors in the world.

Alaska Sausage and Seafood

Location: Anchorage, Alaska
Founded: 1963
Website:alaskasausage.comBasic wiener appeal: Their smoked reindeer sausage—a popular Anchorage street food item—is spiced with coriander and white pepper. It’s actually made from Alaskan caribou, but reindeer sounds cooler.
Use it to make: A replica of the reindeer dog served at Anchorage’s M.A.’s Gourmet Dogs, which is grilled and topped with Coca-Cola-caramelized onions.
Alaska Sausage and Seafood was originally known for its processed game meats like moose, caribou, and deer. Today, they make an array of reindeer products including hot dogs, salami, and meat sticks. Pro tip: Order some smoked salmon too.

Latest News

Now Trending

FIRST WE FEAST participates in various affiliate marketing programs, which means FIRST WE FEAST gets paid commissions on purchases made through our links to retailer sites. Our editorial content is not influenced by any commissions we receive.